International event MC and Moderator, Lovelda has been speaking and performing on stages since the age of 13. With a background in event creation herself, Lovelda now specialises in MCing and moderating business conferences and summits for organisers who have want to create memorable events.

She is a professional, dynamic and versatile MC who is an asset to any event management team.

Throughout her career, Lovelda has introduced senior executives from companies such as Time Inc., Telefonica, Vodafone, Twitter, Google to the stage as well as household names such as Rachael Elnaugh (former Dragon on Dragon’s Den) and Monica Lewinsky.

As a former radio host of her own radio show Lovelda has interviewed over 200 entrepreneurs.

Having travelled since age 3 and lived in Papua New Guinea and the UK, Lovelda is passionate about travel, diversity and business. This unique background allows Lovelda to easily adapt to different situations and ask questions, which challenge the status quo.

She has been featured in Psychologies magazine and appeared as a regular commentator on live global news for Arise TV

In this episode, we talk about

Why there are more male speakers at conferences and what to do to change that.

The massive unknown opportunity for women on bigger stages

How women can step up in their power and quantum leap their leadership

Transcript

– Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Explode Your Expert Business Show. And today I’m here with the most beautiful woman in the entire world, my wife, Lovelda Vincenzi. Now, the reason why we are doing this episode, it is because she came across a report with some shocking news about women on stages and female speakers. And the work that she does is in the area. She’s not only emceeing large events regularly, but also she teaches women how to be in higher positions and fill up leadership roles and as well being on bigger stages. So, baby, welcome to the show.

– Yaaaay!

-Now, so what’s going on? What’s going on? Why women are not on more stages? I mean is a men problem? So do we need to attack the men and…

– No.

– we’re doing something wrong? No? Not this time?

– I’m not, look, I might be a little bit of a feminist but I’m really not about attacking the men. Because my view is, look, you can put structures and systems in place externally through government, you can blame it on men, but ultimately, even with all of this stuff in place, if women don’t turn up and show up and step into roles, then they’re still not gonna get those speaking gigs.

– Sure.

– Let me give you a classic example. So last year Annik and I ran, Annik, from Speaker Express, and I ran something called the Female Speakers Conference. First time we ran it, we’re doing it again this year on the 11th of October. And as part of it, we had awards for female speakers. We had like five categories, I think it was. And one of them was called the Rising Star Award, which was designed for people who are brand new to speaking, just kind of starting up and, you know, moving through their speaking career. And no word of a lie, 75% of people, women, applied for that role, regardless of where they were. The judges had to take them out of that and move them into other categories. There were people who won awards who’d applied for the Rising Star Award. So in that regard, I kinda go, we can’t really blame the men or the government or upbringing or any of that kind of nonsense. That’s us.

– So for once, it’s not our fault.

– Not entirely, I didn’t say it wasn’t. I don’t want you coming–

– Or cookie and our again.

– No, no, no.

– No, it’s not our fault.

– We need to back down a couple of pegs, babe.

– Okay, okay. So how then can this problem be solved? Because on one side, it looks like the opportunities are there. And then is it event organisers? They’re not taking enough women on their conferences? Is that women that need to step out more, as you’re saying? Is it a combination of both? What are your thoughts around that?

– It’s always gonna be a combination. Give me options, I’m gonna pick all. Um,, do you want A or B? Both! It’s a combination, but I think the truth is that a lot of organisers are more and more waking up to the fact that they’d love to have a mix on the stage. But the truth is having spoken to a lot of organisers, they also seriously struggle to find women to put on those stages. And knowing so many women, you know, running a group called World Class Female Speakers, like I know a lot of women who could go on those stages, we just don’t put ourselves forward. So then what’s going on? Like is it, I’m not a believer in this imposter syndrome in its entirety, but we do have a different kind of mental makeup about when we’re allowed to step forward. So I think it’s two things. One, it’s how big we think about stages. So I found, and I can put a link to this here afterwards, I found this report called Closing the Gender Gap at Europe’s Top Policy Events, and they basically evaluated, I think it was like 23 European policy events, where they’re looking at climate change, gender, a whole raft of things that impact Europe. And they were looking at what is the mix between men and women there. And for some conferences it was as ridiculous as three men to one woman. So they’re looking at ways to kind of address that.

– Yeah, I’m seeing even when I’m talking, speaking at events, generally there is the headline, and they’re all men, and then there is the odd woman popping up and it’s just, who are you? Just basically ticking your diversity box here so you can have, you know, a black woman on stage or a woman on stage, just to–

– Look it here, we’ve got diversity in gender, in ethnicity, whatever, tick, tick, tick. But here’s the other side of things. It’s all well and good what, like, here’s the report. I kind of printed it out. It’s like my little Bible now. Yeah, I was enraged, I was enraged.

– Yeah, literally, she walks around the house with that report, with that bloody report.

– It’s a good reminder ’cause is, I look at it as two things. One, there are so many opportunities out there for women to speak on really big stages. And I don’t think this is European-centric. I get a sense that it’s very similar around the globe. But secondly, what it also says is, how big are we thinking in terms of what kind of stages we can get on as women. Are we still thinking in terms of, oh, you know, I’m gonna do gigs for–

– For the local library.

– For the local library and the local church and there’s nothing wrong with that. Or are our ambitions really like I wanna change policy. So I hear a lot of people who come and start working with me say I really wanna change the world. Well, here’s an opportunity. Like if you can get on some of these policy stages then that’s an opportunity to change the world. The second part of that, though, is we have to be found. And as much as, there’s one thing I’ve truly discovered over the past year, really diving into this, is it’s not a problem of talent. It’s a problem of are there women out here who can speak on these topics, are there women out there who can speak confidently and competent, do they have the skills? It’s not a matter of skill. It’s a matter of, ’cause there’s lots of people on stages now and you watch them and you think, I could do better than that. Like, really, really? You picked them? You want me to tell you why they picked them? ‘Cause they could find them. Right? So the reverse of that is as women, how easy are we to find as speakers? So when we were doing the Female Speakers Conference, we’d have people pitching, yeah, yeah, I wanna speak on the stage, and then they didn’t have any video footage, or they weren’t able to pitch effectively, they weren’t looking at what it is that the group is about, what’s the event about, and really putting their best foot forward to show how they would map into that. And I think men are, unfortunately, a lot better than that.

– I think it’s we can, I dunno, I find that’s the same working with a lot of clients, I work with a lot of speakers, men and women, and I completely agree with you. Men generally, if you say, okay go and apply for that gig, they will go and apply for that gig. Go and book that podcast, they will go and book that podcast. Now you’re going to the female realm, it’s like, go and apply for that gig. But what if? And now there’s a hundreds of thousands of what if opened up.

– Am I ready? Are they gonna accept me?

– Is the topic gonna be good enough. Am I good enough as a speaker? Do I have all the pieces of the puzzle together? And you mentioned something, actually, which is really relevant, about women in jobs, before when we are having the conversation.

– Yeah, there’s this really well-known study, I can’t remember the precise details, so don’t come rushing for me like, that’s not what it said! But it’s something like, when it comes to job applications, men only feel like they need to know about, I think it’s like 60, 70% of what’s required in the application to apply.

– If is a muck-ez, 20% is enough, I’m more than qualified.

– Whereas women, we’ve got a much higher threshold, where we need to feel like, okay we need, I think it’s something like 80, 90% for women to apply for a job. And 80% is low. Most women, you know, we kinda like, mmmmm, 90%, there’s a little stretch there, but I feel like I could do most of that, so then I’ll put myself forward. So some of it is very much around this talk, chatter, and talk that we’ve got in the back of our head. And we spend so much time and attention focusing on the skill and learning, and there’s nothing wrong with that, who to contact, how to contact them, but the work I do with women, I’m like, girl, please. How many people have you bought from that have given you a list of things to do and your results really don’t reflect that list of things. Like you were running around like a banshee doing all the things in the world but it’s not quite translating. Because it’s not, it’s nothing to do with that. It’s all the stuff going on in here means the energy that sits behind it, its like pitching. There’s a different energy to somebody who comes and says, look I’m gonna get on that stage. They’ve done it before, they have the confidence that sits behind them. And so the way that they talk about it, it’s like they must know what they’re doing. Versus somebody who’s got that internal chatter, that’s basically, mmm, I’m not sure if I’m good enough. I’ve done it, I’ve watched, I get–

– You can see it–

– I get clients say, oh Lovelda can you read this pitch, and I’m like, babe, listen, I’m reading this, and this isn’t you. This is like a weak version of you. Can we, can you sing your praises a little bit more? And in order to get to that point, first we’ve got to get underneath what it is that’s really going on back here. Some of it’s context, it’s like, I feel like everything out there is so big and they all know what they’re talking about and I’m just so little. And once you address that, actually, you’re then talking from a different space. The challenge is as women, we wait for the evidence to show up first. It’s like okay, so it’s slow. We do this little gig. Okay, yup, now I’ve got that one in the bag. Okay, now I can do a little bit bigger. The first one was like 50 people, so now I can do 75 people. Oo, that was a bit scary. Did the 75 people. You know if you go at that pace, you’ll be there for bleeding ever. I’m not about that, so everything I do is about quantum leapy, you know this, babe.

– Quantum leapy.

– Quantum leapy.

– Is all about, so we put in the comment here, #quantumleapy, because that’s the hashtag of Lovelda’s life. Apparently, everything she does is quantum leapy. But in fact, talking about quantum leap, I know that you’re running a retreat. We’re going to talk about the retreat soon, which is addressing, actually, this very issue, about getting women on more stages and stepping into their leadership and who they truly are, into their power. I wanna, before that though, I wanna give a shout-out to Vanessa Simmons, thank you very much for watching. As well as Angela Protain, thank you very much for watching as well. Guys, if you’re watching here, pop a message so I can give a shout-out as well. If you any have questions, great topic. Put your questions below, so then we can answer them, and Lovelda can answer them as well. So we’re talking about getting women ready to step up. You mentioned that there is something underneath that needs to be sorted out or changed. How can we start working on that? How can women start working on that?

– So the first thing I’m gonna say is I don’t believe anybody’s broken. So–

– So it’s not a fix.

– It’s not a fix.

– Don’t go to screw fix and–

– Hmm-mm, it doesn’t work like that. So this is not, I don’t work in the realm of, like, eliminating beliefs, because they’re not going anywhere. When you feel like you’ve addressed one set of beliefs in one context, what happens is as you step up and step into a different version of yourself another set of beliefs rears its ugly head or the same set but in a different context, right? So if you think you’re gonna be eliminating belief, hi Michelle! Eliminating beliefs, you’re gonna be going around in circles forever, because they’re not going anywhere. This is about learning to understand the belief for what they are. So where beliefs are really helpful is they help keep you out of trouble, right? If you’ve got a belief that says fire is gonna burn you, then you just stay away from fire. However, outside of something getting ready to kind of bite your head off, literally, normally the beliefs aren’t in real facts. And so if you think one thing you’re gonna keep creating more of that. But we don’t spend much time really working out what’s going on in our head, and my view is if you believe, whatever you believe you can create. And whatever’s the dominant thought that you’ve got in your head, that’s really what you’re gonna be working with. The challenge is they’re bleeding sneaky becausethey’ve been working in the background so effectively for so long, you don’t even know it’s happening. I had a client, oh God, a couple of weeks ago. She almost got me. Because it’s so, the way, it’s so incessant in the way that we work through things. So first and foremost, I don’t work in the realm of kind of removing beliefs or getting rid of any of that sort of stuff. It’s about how to work with it effectively and to understand that when that belief is helpful and when it’s getting in the way. So if I’ve got a choice and I can choose to believe that I can be really, really successful or I can choose, then and therefore it’s easier for me to create success. Or I can choose to believe that the world is really tough and it’s really hard because I’m female and nobody gives me a chance, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then guess what? You’re probably gonna experience more of that. And we’ve met people who, everything seems to go right for them, and so they’re always bleeding happy. Always just in this happy, they kind of live in a little balivolent bubble. Balivolent, that’s probably the wrong word. But they’re own little bubble, where they’re really disconnected from reality. And then you’ve got other people who are just miserable as sin. And life reflects misery.

– No matter what they are going through, they’re kind of a magnet–

– For drama.

– of shit and drama happening

– Drama, after drama, after drama.

– in their life.

– So, you know, the work that I do with women around stepping into that level of authority. Look, you just need to be a different person and what I mean by that is, the best analogy I’ve got, is it’s always gonna be terrifying, ’cause we always make up a when I’m ready. You’re never ready. You know the first time you left home? And then that first bill came through the door. And you didn’t understand what the hell it meant. And that was a bit like, oh, gosh, what’s this? It’s a bill, and then the energy companies, and what do I do about them, and aagghhh, you know? You just have different quality problems now, right? Now you’re worried about, how are clients gonna feel, or are you gonna be good enough to get on that international stage ’cause you’ve never done it before. But that, if what you’re running underneath everything is that you’re gonna need to be ready and it’s gonna feel calm and it’s gonna be easy. It’s gonna be uncomfortable. It can be easy and uncomfortable. It’s like the two things don’t, just ’cause it’s easy doesn’t mean that it’s comfortable. I’ve done lots of really easy stuff where somebody’s dropped something in my lap. I’m like, yeah! And I turn up and I go, oh God, what have I put myself into?

– Now I know that also this is part of your, knowing you, this was part of also your personal journey, stepping into your own power, in particular, and talking about speaking, getting out there with your own business. How was that change and a transition for you? Was something that happened suddenly, that you had a revelation is like, no, I gotta get out there more, stop playing small, now I wanna show the world how great Lovelda is, or was it part of a process? How was that for you?

– Let me put it this way. What you just spoke about is what I did for about seven years and got no results. Like, wake up in the morning, today is gonna be the day! This year is gonna be the year people gonna know my name! Right, nothing happened. It was lots of like, because I didn’t believe it. And then as soon as it came to the reality I’d get flustered and overwhelmed and I didn’t know what to do and so I spent loads of time, I spent like a good six, seven years, and I’m not a stupid person, you know, I’m pretty, it made it worse. It was like I’m a very intelligent person. I should be able to figure this out. But it would come to charging and I just couldn’t get my head around that, and it would come to something else, and I just did not have the right support structure for me to navigate through those uncomfortable new, navigate through the uncomfortable new world. And what I mean by that is not that the new world is uncomfortable, but different is uncomfortable. It’s just, it was like this and now this has happened. And then just weird experiences like I’d get myself booked on a really amazing stage or I’d suddenly get this really great client. And I’d be excited and then I’d be petrified ’cause I’d think, am I gonna be able to do that again? Like is this a fluke? This stuff doesn’t happen to me. So all of that like go-go-go, the desire was there for years. What really changed things is when I had a structure to support me through the uncomfortable phase. ‘Cause I couldn’t sit in that discomfort for that long without somebody to bounce off, to remind me of what is it that you’re thinking, and this is on the right, you know. It wasn’t necessarily anything brand new, but those reminders is what I needed almost as a foundation. If you think of it as like a foundation that helps you kind of lift up. ‘Cause otherwise I’m kind of jumping and then pfffff.

– Yeah, we all need those reminders. I mean, we go through life, we have opportunities, and for men, for women, there’s always this, oh my God, can I really do this? I think as you said also for women even more than for men, and creating the structure of accountability and reminders of how great you are. Hey, that you don’t have to play, don’t go back and play small, but actually keep getting out there and play a big game. That’s super important.

– I think what I’d add to that is we think it’s just about business but unless you’re bipolar or something, you’re the same person,right? And even if you’re bipolar, you’re still the same person, right? But you’re the same person in business as you are in your personal life. And for women, particularly because we have such a nurturing nature, we will start to come up with excuses outside of business that we don’t even know are playing out that stop us from playing big. I’ll give you an example. This is a true life example I’m gonna share. Behind the scenes sharing coming.

– Behind the scenes.

– Behind the scenes. So one of the things that I was for a longest time to scared to even admit to myself was, what if my business gets bigger than my husband’s? Then how’s that gonna affect this, right? So unconsciously now, I can only grow as fast as he can grow ’cause I need to stay a couple of steps behind. And then what if we have a family, then how’s, and all of this stuff, this luggage, baggage stuff, that we don’t talk about because it’s business, and so we can’t talk about these other things that unconsciously have us hold back a little bit because we think, well I don’t want to feel like I’m grabbing, getting this at the expense of something else. And being able to navigate through those thoughts, ’cause you can have it all, it doesn’t have to be one or other, it’s different sort of conversations that you’re having. But I wanted to bring that up because… it’s not that I’m here, I’m not doing all kinds of life coaching in its entirety, but I do acknowledge that what’s happening in life has a significant impact on what’s happening in business.

– Absolutely, and I remember when you mentioned it the first time.

– And it wasn’t true.

– You told me, is like, I was scared that I could have a bigger business than yours. And on one side, I was like, but if you have a great business I’m just gonna be happy. So where is this coming from. I was so shocked. And on the other side, and my cheeky side came up. I said, oh so I’m so bloody competitive, I’m not gonna let it happen. So I’m just gonna work harder to make it. But that’s just me in any situation. But I was completely shocked because… for me, I want to see you happy. And I want to see you as successful as possible. So even knowing that that could play in your mind, I was like, really?

– Oh, us women have it, yeah. A version of it, right? And I hadn’t told him before. Like the first time I mentioned it, I think it came out in–

– Oh, after a while, like I think you already went

– And then I was just–

– past it when you mention it.

– Oh it had been there for like years, babe. But in terms of my business, it was kind of fine. If I’m more successful in a day job, that’s fine. ‘Cause they’re completely different. But now these are comparable, like how’s that gonna feel? And ugh, you know? And so I don’t want to create that dynamic. I kind of like being with him, it’s fun.

– Back to business here on Explore Your Expert Business Show, guys. I wanna say quick shout-out as well to Caroline Beasley just joined. Guna, thank you for joining. Monica Jordan, Sonya Peraza, Shapur Claudad, hopefully I’m pronouncing your name right. If not, not. If you just joined, we’re talking about women, getting women on bigger stages, or getting on women on higher leadership positions. And in particular the topic of how women operate in a different way than men operate. Here with my wife, Lovelda. And she’s running an amazing retreat in, when is the retreat going to be?

– Oh, great question. Fourth to the eighth of April. It’s the first weekend in April, Thursday to Friday.

– So four to eight of April. And so what’s the retreat going to be focused on? And let us know a bit more about–

– Oh, I’m so excited!

– What kind of process are you going to go through to help women step into the higher leadership and step into their own power?

– So for me, it’s really about supporting women and in female influences in authorities own, your innate power to step into the true version of who you are, therefore conquering larger stages, high-level stages, leadership positions, positions of authority, so on. And in doing so, actually, yes we’ll do a bit that’s like really speaker related but most of the work that we’re doing is very much starting to look at what are the things that are really going on that you either don’t wanna say or that are in the background, thought patterns that are playing out that are causing the biggest block. And for some of you it’s gonna be a lot of action that will come out of it. And for others of you it might be less action and more contemplative time. The group is gonna be no more than 12 women, tops. It’s actually a retreat for those women who’ve invested in my Quantum Leap Your Influence Mastermind. So I’m opening up five places only for people outside of the mastermind to come and join us on that exclusive weekend. It’s a lap of luxury so you will be looked after.

– The location is absolutely amazing.

– Because when you’re really doing the kind of inner transformational work, at least for me, you kind of need to be comfortable. Because we don’t know what’s gonna happen. It could be really exciting, it could be tears. But what I will tell you is you’ll come in here and you’ll transform and leave as a completely different version of woman, really ready to step out and be seen. And we’re not talking about the surface level stuff. No, we’re going deep and really understanding what are the thought patterns that have really been playing out. ‘Cause once you get to those, what you get to see is yes, it’s in business, but often, sometimes it might not even be anything to do with your business that comes out of it. Right, it might be something completely different. So it’s all inclusive, because I don’t want any, quantum leaping needs to be stressless. So the price of the retreat includes your accommodation, three meals a day, access to the spa. It’s in Berkshire. Beautiful hotel called the Vineyard Hotel. So if you do get too stressed, there are more than 30,000 wines to pick from.

– And the wines are great. Oh, we went to see the location on last weekend. Lush.

– Yeah, so it’s a combination of a treat to yourself to really allow yourself to indulge and just have that mental space for yourself, but also a pause point to really look at what is going on so that you can take your quantum leap, catapult, jump into the next level of yourself and really own it, such that when you come out of it, it’s like you go in one woman, you come out this other woman, and people are like, dang, who’s that powerhouse?

– So if people want to reach out to you, connect with you, and learn more about the retreat, where they can go?

– Well, what I’m gonna do is I have a link just to have a conversation. I’m not over-complicating it. It’s like five spaces available so I’ve got no website or anything like that to do with it, so don’t message me and ask me like, can I go and read stuff? No, let’s have a chat. Because it’s exclusive, it’s an application. It’s an application call, so two things can happen. One, I can understand what are the main focuses for you that we’d really be diving into in the retreat. But secondly, I can also then understand if you’d be the right fit for the retreat right now or whether or not another programme might be a better fit for you. But essentially if you’ve been stuck, if you’ve been working really hard but you feel like you’ve kind of hit a plateau, if you’re really ready to kind of go from one point to another, it doesn’t matter how large your business is. This isn’t about you have to have a business of whatever size. It’s more about you’re really ready to take a big leap in your business, to buckle yourself in and kind of you know, slow, the pace is not good enough, it’s time to really take things at a much faster pace. Then get in touch. Let’s have a chat. The chat costs nothing. I like making new friends. I have to remind people this, right? Don’t let this be a reason for you not to, oh, I don’t know how much it is, and what’s coming on, and, no, let’s have a conversation. This can be the first step that you take in having a different approach to the way that you do business as a woman. Rather than assuming what’s gonna happen on that call or it’s gonna be too big or expensive or whatever it is, here’s the first hurdle for you. Just book a call. ‘Cause this is kind of how it goes, right? Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, I mean, talk myself out of it, and then sometimes you’ve talked yourself out of it and it’s not even as big as you thought it was. So just book the call. The worst that’ll happen is we’ll have a really great chat and you’ll have learned something new.

– So we’re gonna put the link of Lovelda’s calendar or the link where you can book a call here in the show notes if you’re listening to the podcast. If you’re watching live, we’re going to put it here in the comments. Now before we leave, I always wrap up our podcast with something called lifting the veil.

– I don’t know that I like this.

– You’ll like, we all like lifting the veil. It’s one of my favourite, actually. I love lifting the veil. It’s one of my favourite parts of the show. That’s the part of the show where we’re asking our guest to share something that can be a software, an app, a book that they’re reading at the moment, something that they maybe bought recently, that made an impact in their life, on their businesses. So what’s that for you?

– What I will say is over the last year, what’s made the most impact in my business is having more time to think. And it sounds really contradictory ’cause I’m naturally a doer. Give me stuff to do! Give me things to buy and read and educate myself, and. But here’s the thing, you can collect all of that stuff, but if you’re not using it and processing it and thinking about it, then it’s harder to actually get the traction and so actually for me, here’s my veil. Do less. Really do less and just, just creating daily, I create at least, my morning routine can take up to two or three hours. Like–

– Yes, yes, it does. He can contest to it every morning.

– It does.

– I like to take time every day to just think about and consciously choose my day. Because one thing that used to frustrate me the most about being in a day job is I was always so exhausted. I’d wake up and slam into my day. And then I would just slam into the memory of all this things, that list of crazy things that I have to do. And I wouldn’t have any time to really contemplate it. And any time I took a couple of steps back, even if it was like 20 minutes, just hid myself away and just wrote a list of things that I needed to do, and thought about what would really be the most important things to do, I was actually a tonne more effective. So create space. I love spaciousness.

– Create space, create space in your life. Thank you for sharing. Also make sure you get on into the Quantum Leap Your Influence Retreat. There are going to be more details below where you can book the call with Lovelda. Highly recommend if you are a woman that wants to get on more stages and want to step up in a consistent way not just do one thing, one step forward and three step backwards, then join the retreat because it’s going to be absolutely amazing and you’re going to have an experience that you will remember for the rest of your life. I’m seeing all the behind the scene. She talks to me about all the ideas that she has for the retreat. I’m like, it’s gonna blow you away. Oh, baby, thank you very much for being here on the show.

– It’s been fun!

– It’s been fun.

– I met some new people.

– And thank you very much for being on the show, guys. Make sure you connect with Lovelda. And subscribe to the podcast Explode Your Expert Business Show if you haven’t subscribed yet. If you’re watching live, thank you for watching live. It means a lot to us. We don’t take your eyeballs for granted, so thank you, thank you very much for joining. And also remember that together we grow exponentially. I’ll see you next time. Bye, ciao, ciao.